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Our Organic Research

Working with Us

The Rural Business School has been involved in organic research since 2001 when the Organic Studies Centre (based at Duchy College Rosewarne) was formed. The Centre was established to support farmer innovation and facilitate and encourage the participation of farmers in on-farm research activities. RBS research has formed part of national and international organic research programmes.

Examples of a wide portfolio of projects include:

Farm Health Online (Organic Vet) A collaboration between Duchy College, Animal Welfare Approved and A Greener World, this website of animal health and welfare information supports sustainable livestock farming by bringing together appropriate material from a wide range of recent research and advisory sources and making it accessible for farmers, veterinarians and advisors

Legume LINK project: LK09106: Using legume-based mixtures to enhance the nitrogen use efficiency and economic viability of cropping systems Funded by Defra under the Sustainable Arable LINK scheme, the nationwide project aimed to improve fertility building in organic rotations through investigating combinations of different legume and grass species in mixtures and the provision of more efficient transfer of nitrogen to subsequent crops. Replicated field experiments were conducted over three years at multiple locations including Duchy College Rosewarne

The Aniplan Project: Minimising medicine use in organic dairy herds through animal health and welfare planning A European project as part of the EU-funded CORE organic programme for which Duchy College was one of the UK partners. The project focussed on developing animal health and welfare planning principles for organic dairy farms under diverse conditions based on evaluating experiences and looked at developing guidelines for communication about animal health and welfare promotion in different settings

The Low Carbon Farming projectOriginally a SWARM Hub sub-project (managed by the RBS), it is an initiative led by the Soil Association that provides farmers with tools to manage their carbon footprints, promoting the cost-benefit relationships. Two key outputs have been a handbook and a carbon footprint calculator (FCAT) as well as information sheets on topics such as carbon footprinting, climate change in agriculture and growing your own energy

To read more and find out about other research please visit the Organic Studies Centre website.